CLODIA-FRAGMENTA
Dir. Franco Brocani, 1982
Italy, 116 min.
In Italian with English subtitles.

MONDAY, MAY 8 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MAY 17 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 27 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 30 – 7:30 PM

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In 1896 Marcel Schwob published Imaginary Lives, a work of what we’d now call biographical fiction which became a primary influence on Jorge Luis Borges (he used it as a model for his book A Universal History of Iniquity) and Roberto Bolaño. It’s out of print in English, which is a god damn tragedy. Among tales of Captain Kidd, Burke & Hare and Lucretius we find the story of Clodia, an “impure woman”, whom we know about primarily from the writings of Cicero (who called her the Medea of the Palantine). Clodia was many things: a poet, a philosopher, a potential murderer, and a public drunk, but more than any of this she was known for her many, many, many affairs, which led to a tawdry court case. This could easily turn into an E! True Rome Story, but Schwob (who wrote the absolutely masterful The Book of Monelle, which IS in print) brings his severe erudition and Symbolist tendencies to the fore.

Fast forward to 1982 – when experimental director Franco Brocani (NECROPOLIS) released this meditation of Schwob’s tale of Clodia’s scandal, taking cues from the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet (and maybe a little Jean Rollin?). Often consisting of an empty red screen as the narrator recounts Schwob’s tale, intercut with languid tableaux reminiscent of Peter Greenaway or Raul Ruiz, CLODIA-FRAGMENTA is ultimately a film about desire transgressing the mores of society and the rule of law. Perfectly capturing the Symbolist nature of the source material, it’s a film that requires patience but pays back that investment tenfold. Never released on VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray anywhere, it’s a film that resists plot summary. Spring is in the air at Spectacle!

TUESDAY, MAY 9 – 7:30 PM

INTRODUCED BY BASEERA KHAN

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MATCH CUTS PRESENTS and Spectacle Theater present a double feature of Isaac Julien’s FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK and Ellen Spiro’s DIANA’S HAIR EGO: AIDS INFO UP FRONT, with a special introduction by artist Baseera Khan.

FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK
dir. Isaac Julien, 1996.
UK, 52 min.
English and French w/ English subtitles.

FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK explores for the first time on film the pre-eminent theorist of the anti-colonial movements of this century. Fanon’s two major works, Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, were pioneering studies of the psychological impact of racism on both colonized and colonizer. Jean-Paul Sartre recognized Fanon as the figure “through whose voice the Third World finds and speaks for itself.” This innovative film biography restores Fanon to his rightful place at the center of contemporary discussions around post-colonial identity.

Isaac Julien, the celebrated black British director of such provocative films as Looking for Langston and Young Soul Rebels, integrates the facts of Fanon’s brief but remarkably eventful life with his long and tortuous inner journey. Julien elegantly weaves together interviews with family members and friends, documentary footage, readings from Fanon’s work and dramatizations of crucial moments in Fanon’s life. Cultural critics Stuart Hall and Françoise Verges position Fanon’s work in his own time and draw out its implications for our own.

Born in Martinique in 1925, Fanon received a conventional colonial education. When he went to France to fight in the Resistance and train as a psychiatrist, his assimilationist illusions were shattered by the gaze of metropolitan racism. Out of this experience came his first book Black Skin, White Masks (1952) originally titled “An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks.” Fanon here defined the colonial relationship as the psychological non-recognition of the subjectivity of the colonized.

Soon after taking a position at a psychiatric hospital in Algeria, Fanon became involved in the bitter Algerian civil war, eventually leaving his post to become a full-time militant in the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). Out of this struggle, Fanon wrote his most influential book, The Wretched of the Earth, which Stuart Hall describes as the “bible of the decolonization movement.”

Fanon died of leukemia in 1961, just as Algeria was winning its independence. But his seminal texts continue to challenge us to liberate ourselves from all forms of psychological domination.

Text courtesy of California Newsreel.

DIANA’S HAIR EGO: AIDS INFO UP FRONT
dir. Ellen Spiro, 1990.
USA, 29 min.
English.

Recognizing the extreme inadequacy of information on AIDS prevention, cosmetologist DiAna DiAna, with her partner Dr. Bambi Sumpter, took on the task of educating the black community (which makes up the majority of local AIDS cases) in Columbia, South Carolina. This video documents the growth of the South Carolina AIDS Education Network, which originated and operates in DiAna’s Hair Ego, DiAna’s beauty salon. Working in repressive times to teach a sex-positive and compassionate response to the AIDS crisis in the “buckle of the Bible Belt,” the work of the South Carolina AIDS Education Network has met with harsh criticism. Despite political pressure, DiAna and Sumpter refuse to compromise their teachings in order to get state funding. Since 1986 they have been operating solely on the beauty shop’s tips. Their creative strategies and non-judgemental concern offer a model for making a difference.

Text courtesy of Video Data Bank

MATCH CUTS is a weekly podcast centered on video, film and the moving image. Match Cuts Presents is dedicated to presenting de-colonialized cinema, LGBTQI films, Marxist diatribes, video art, dance films, sex films, and activist documentaries with a rotating cast of presenters from all spectrums of the performing and plastic arts and surrounding humanities. Match Cuts is hosted by Nick Faust and Kachine Moore.

BASEERA KHAN is a New York based artist. Her visual and written work performs patterns and repetitions of emigration and exile shaped by economic, social, and political changes throughout the world with special interests in decolonization processes. She recently had a solo exhibition ‘iamuslima’ at Participant Inc. NYC, and exhibited in BRIC Biennial, Brooklyn, NY (2016) at The Weeksville Heritage Center. Her past exhibitions include Subject to Capital, Abrons Art Center, New York (2016), Arrivals, Out to See, New York City (2014), TX*13 Texas Biennial 5th Anniversary Survey Group Exhibition, Texas (2014), Picturing Parallax, San Francisco State University, California (2011), Hindu Kush, and Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco (2009). She was an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Artist Residency, Skowhegan, Maine (2014). She was recently an International Fellow in Israel/Palestine through Apexart, New York (2015). She was also a participating artist in Process Space LMCC (2015). Khan is currently a 2017 Artist in Residence at Abrons Art Center, NYC and part-time faculty at Parsons, The New School for Design. She received her M.F.A. at Cornell University (2012) and B.F.A from the University of North Texas (2005).

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ANOTHER EVIL
dir. Carson Mell, 2017
90 min, USA

NYC DEBUT!

FRIDAY, MAY 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 6 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 7 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 16 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MAY 22 – 7:30 PM

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After encountering a ghost in his vacation home, terrified Dan Pappadakis (Steve Zissis, TOGETHERNESS) goes behind his wife’s back to hire an industrial grade exorcist – the bizarre and needy Os Bijourn (Mark Proksch, BETTER CALL SAUL). While implementing a variety of increasingly outlandish “ghost traps,” Os tries to befriend Dan almost as relentlessly as he tries to destroy the home’s “demons.” Dan considers calling the whole thing off, but it quickly becomes apparent that a great evil has embedded itself in his home, and that the fate of his entire family is at stake. Featuring EASTBOUND AND DOWN’s Jennifer Irwin and Steve Little.

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HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
dir. John McNaughton, 1986
95 min, USA

SATURDAY, MAY 13 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 20 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – 7:30 PM

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Warning: This film contains scenes of graphic violence and brutality that may be triggering for some viewers.

Undeniably one of the most harrowing American films of the 20th century, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER hits Blu-ray with a restoration that cements its reputation as a shocking, thought-provoking nightmare-plunge into the depths of the human soul.

Henry (Michael Rooker, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), a psychopathic drifter who has left a trail of bodies in his wake, settles for a while at the dilapidated Chicago apartment of ex-prison mate Otis. Into this toxic environment comes Otis’s (Tom Towles, SEINFELD) younger sister Becky (Tracy Arnold), who s fleeing an abusive marriage and looking for a place to stay. Deflecting her brother s incestuous advances, Becky finds herself attracted to Henry and sees him as a potential lover and herself as his possible savior. What she doesn’t realize is that Otis and Henry are now killing together, sinking to ever more terrifying depths of depravity. As Becky tries to get her life back on track, she looks to Henry for a way out. But is redemption even possible for a man like Henry?

In celebration of Dark Sky Films’ 10th Anniversary, Spectacle is proud to present HENRY in their brand new 4K scan, restored from the 16mm original camera negative and approved by director John McNaughton and producer Steven A. Jones, featuring a new 5.1 mix restoration from the stereo 35mm mag reels. Sure to send shivers of mortal dread through a whole new generation of filmgoers, this new presentation puts HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER firmly back into the vanguard of contemporary cinematic horror.

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EMELIE
dir. Michael Thelin, 2016
80 min USA

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 18 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 27 – 10 PM

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As their parents head out for a date in the city, the three young Thompson children – Jacob, Christopher, and Sally – immediately take to their new babysitter Anna (Sarah Bolger, THE LAZARUS EFFECT), who seems like a dream come true: she’s sweet, fun, and lets them do things that break all of their parents’ rules. But as the night creeps along and Anna’s interactions with them take on a more sinister tone, the kids slowly realize that their caretaker may not be who she claims to be. Soon it’s up to big brother Jacob to protect his siblings from the increasingly nefarious intentions of a very disturbed woman whose weapon is trust, and whose target is innocence.

Featuring a tour-de-force performance from Bolger and its three young leads, EMELIE is a multidimensional, uncomfortably tense thriller that asks the question: how can you put an end to horror after you’ve already let it in?

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WILLOW CREEK
dir. Bobcat Goldthwait, 2014
80 min, USA

TUESDAY, MAY 2 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MAY 15 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 18 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 26 – 10 PM

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A young couple find themselves face-to-face with a terrifying evil when they venture into the heart of Bigfoot country in WILLOW CREEK, comedian-turned-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s (GOD BLESS AMERICA, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD)’s unique spin on the horror genre.

Looking to make a splash with his research videos into the existence of Bigfoot, Jim (Bryce Johnson, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS) and his girlfriend Kelly take a camping trip to the mountains surrounding Willow Creek, California, a small town where infamous footage of the supposed Sasquatch was filmed. Before long the headstrong couple are lost in the woods and discover that someone – or something – is stalking them. With each passing night bringing unknowable danger, the two must use all of their cunning to try to make it out of the forest alive.

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COLD SWEAT
Dir. Adrián García Bogliano, 2010
80 Minutes, Argentina
In Spanish with English subtitles

FRIDAY, MAY 5 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 20 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, MAY 25 – 7:30 PM

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When Roman’s girlfriend disappears, he expects to find her in the arms of another man. And find her he does but there is no lover on the scene, only a pair of crazy old men keeping her locked away in the basement of their crumbling mansion. Armed with wild-eyed political ideals and case after case of decades-old and highly unstable dynamite, the villainous duo are conducting illicit experiments on a string of young women lured to their home via the internet. If Roman cannot free his young love, she is likely to end up in pieces, thanks in part to a generous slathering of nitro-glycerine.

A delirious, old-school horror picture with the most memorable villains in years at its core, Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s COLD SWEAT was a huge hit at SXSW thanks to its creator’s wild imagination and sense of showmanship. Loaded with memorable characters and stylish action, COLD SWEAT is a shocker that never fails to entertain.

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SATURDAY, MAY 6 – 730 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

In March, online public access station 8Ball TV traveled to São Paulo to attend the fifth annual edition of the international independent publishing fair, Plana Festival.

The goal was simple: Recreating 8Ball’s “DIY TV” studio environment for a completely different set of artists, filmmakers, and anyone who wanted to make a video. This program represents the videos created in São Paulo, and the submissions given by locals: PRETXS is a documentary web series that delves into the lives of Sao Paulo’s LGBTQ+ youth; PIXO is a film about the purveyors of “pichação” a uniquely Brazilian style of graffiti; PROJECTING NANCY FLOWERS archives the work of 95-year-old visual anthropologist Nancy May Flowers and her encounters with the Xavante people of Mato Grosso Brazil; OCUPADO is a short documentary about the work of “professional occupier” Careca, shot and produced in Sao Paulo by 8 Ball TV; and finally, artist Diego Fernandes told us to store his film “in a cool, dry place, or a hairy naked chick.”

Parallel to the stateside release of Albert Serra’s brain-bending THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV, Spectacle is pleased to exhibit two early works by the divisive young Catalan auteur. Serra’s 2006 debut HONOR OF THE KNIGHTS is a naturalistic refraction of Don Quixote, while 2008’s BIRDSONG depicts the quest of the Magi as a corporeal buddy comedy suffused with a tranquil beauty that calls to mind Ozu, Bergman, Pasolini and Straub. This pair of inverse-monumental works (both of which will be preceded by Serra’s rarely exhibited, Fassbinderian 2013 short CUBALIBRE) invite their viewers to reconsider cinematic apparatuses of space and time, alongside the shibboleths of history as we have retold it to ourselves across the ages.

Special thanks to Andergraun Films and The Cinema Guild.

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HONOR OF THE KNIGHTS
(aka HONOR DE CAVALLERIA)
dir. Albert Serra, 2006
100 mins.
In Catalan with English subtitles.

MONDAY, APRIL 3 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 – 7:30 PM

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Serra’s first feature reimagines Don Quixote soot and all: the interplay between Sancho (Lluís Serrat) and Quixote (Lluís Carbó) is less rhetorical than familial, both tender and eerie in its meandering, inviting the viewer to project their own histories onto the speaker/listener relationship that once undergirded Cervantes’ text – as well as teasing out radical redefinitions of both honor (companionship?) and knightdom (serfdom? au pair-dom?). This Quixote is at once a doddering old man and a sage tumescent with life wisdom in his undying pursuit of chivalry… but does anyone (beyond the bumbling Sancho, anyway) care? HONOR OF THE KNIGHTS features a cast assembled of non-actors from Serra’s hometown of Banyoles, while cinematographer Jimmy Gemferrer’s not-quite-HD camera luxuriates in the Catalan countryside.

On the eve of release for THE STORY OF MY DEATH – which performs a similar intervention upon Dracula and Casanova – Serra told Cinema Scope Magazine: “With these characters you have more or less all the information and, well, then I can do whatever I want, I am free, and I don’t care about being more or less faithful to the original source or character that comes from literature or history.”

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BIRDSONG
(aka EL CANT DELS OCELLS)
dir. Albert Serra, 2008
92 mins.
In Catalan with English subtitles.

MONDAY, APRIL 3 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 29 – 7:30 PM

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Serra’s sophomore feature revels in the unknowability of its chosen subjects: the Three Wise Men indicated here (Lluís Carbó, Lluís Serrat Batlle and Lluís Serrat) are at once the hallowed sages indicated by Christmas lore and yet, furthermore, bumbling and oafish to a point of extreme lovability. Serra’s locations (Iceland, the Canary Islands) lend an otherwise titter-worthy comic travelogue with unspeakable, sacrosanct beauty. Also featuring legendary Canadian film critic Mark Peranson as Josef!

“Serra’s emboldened enough to puncture his formalism with humor, and knows how to elevate his material control to the level of the ineffable.” – Jeff Reichert, IndieWire

“In a manner reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s insistence that the ‘dominant, all-powerful factor of the film is rhythm, expressing the course of time within the frame’, Serra elongates our sense of duration, liberating filmic time from the abstraction of intensified continuity or montage. Movement is slowed to a stage at which it becomes barely perceptible, and our intermittent awareness of the modulation of mise-en-scène marks the passage of time within the shot. Dramatic time is halted and reclaimed for us to engage with and reflect on our sensitivity to light and sound.” – Matthew Flanagan, 16:9